The background description provided herein is for the purpose of generally presenting the context of the disclosure. Work of the presently named inventors, to the extent it is described in this background section, as well as aspects of the description that may not otherwise qualify as prior art at the time of filing, are neither expressly nor impliedly admitted as prior art against the present disclosure.
Compression ignition engines, such as diesel engines, may produce particulate matter (PM) that is filtered from exhaust gas and collected by a PM filter. Over time, the PM filter becomes full of PM that may impede flow of the exhaust gas. A regeneration process may be used to “clean” the PM filter. For example, the PM may be burned within the PM filter using electrical heating.
During the electrical heating, an electric heater heats exhaust gas flowing into the PM filter. The electric heater may include a plurality of heater elements corresponding to a plurality of zones of the PM filter. When activated, a heater element heats a portion of the exhaust gas input to a corresponding zone causing PM therein to combust. The PM continues to combust through channels of the PM filter. This process continues for each of the plurality of zones until each zone is regenerated.